“Love in the time of TB” Or how Health, Crisis and Kindness co-exist in Greece at the time of it’s Colonial Rule today

Think of this blog as a memento. Everything you read here is History…

Take as an example the “Time of Cholera” that has descended upon the Peoples of Southern Europe…

TB today in the year of the Lord 2013 and in the little bankrupt yet proud country of Greece.

The economic maladies are not exactly cholera, but the resurgence of pneumonic TB – a particularly virulent strain of tuberculosis now found in Athens Greece, and in other places of the small country — certainly is.

Because tuberculosis and especially the Pneumonic strain of the TB virus that has been found running rampant in central Athens is a product of the difficult economic times.

Let me connect the dots here for you: TB is purely an economic disease and as such takes hold and multiplies when the population is at it’s weakest state of being. It come along with malnutrition, depression, and general malaise. And it culls the weaklings first and the most powerful second, in a strange path for a virulent deadly pathogen. Because pneumonic TB, enters the airstream of the people from the most common airborne method of transmission, and it goes straight into the bloodstream via the ganglia and dendrites of the lungs. When it gets there, it’s curtains for one out of every two persons infected. Even those who receive the best of modern available therapeutic treatment during the best of times, by the best clinicians, have a less than 50% chance of recovery. The other 50 % goes Bye-Bye. And this percentage hold true, when the best of treatments and antibiotics are available, which right now in Greece they are not. Expensive treatments are out of the menu, and as a result a terrible triage occurs of far more than one to every two people infected, getting lost to the disease.

Yet the Austerity program forced upon the little country by it’s brother nations within the European Union, affords NO TREATMENT for TB and any kind of organized response is unavailable and the State goes so far as to deny the existence of tuberculosis in Greece.

Criminal culpability is not the words I would have chosen to describe this, but the head of WHO in Geneva chose the very same words to describe this travesty of Leadership. Naturally in Greece today, the poor as alway suffer the most. The TB is so bad at the fringes of society that people cannot deign to look, let alone come to terms with reality, in order to accept how serious it is.

To impress upon us the severity of the situation: Greece’s leadership simply describes vividly many of the fragile social cohesion and geopolitical situations that have been and will be exacerbated by the Economic and political crises in the short term, and in the long term, when asking for international help — without ever ever, approaching the great elephant in the room: Public Health. Because human health’s steady decline and public health services demise in Greece is mainly due to the resurgence of the unspoken evil: TB. Tuberculosis is now the number one enemy of Greece’s people. And the whole nation is in denial…

And here is the most important obstacle to understanding and taking meaningful action on addressing the effects of the economic crisis to the human beings in Europe’s South is not lack of kindness.

Because it’s not lack of humaneness from the German leaders of Europe, or from the tripartite Austerity Greek government that was imposed upon the country by the Germans, or from the IMF’s cold hearted bureaucrats.

As usual it is because of a simple failed ideology.

An economic & political ideological failure is the root cause of this illness. The Big Fail of our time. The failed ideology of Austerity economics and the politics of shoehorning people and nations into the mold of slaves. A recycling of the colonial rule ideas that the old King Leopold of Belgium applied to his colony Congo, back in the 19th century, is now applied to Greece on the 21st century. For what else but slavery is to deny a whole people the facts about the terrible threats to their most basic health. This in the year 2013 in this most ancient of Europe’s nations. In Greece. In this treasury of Civilization and Democracy the people are treated like the natives of the lush green river valleys in the jungles of Congo or in the green hills of Rwanda, in Africa during last century’s Colonial European rule. And with the same predictable results. The Colonial administrations managed to get adversarial “minorities” to turn against each other and start vicious infighting. Extreme political gangsters turn the ancient Democracy into a Weimar type republic today, and the presiding Führer from Berlin enjoys soaring popularity as the Mama Bear of Europe. Of course the Greeks are still far too civilized to bring out the machetes and start slashing at each other’s throat like the Hutus & Tutsis did in Congo and neighbouring Rwanda under the misery spreading King Leopold’s tutelage all the way back in the century before last and again in the 90’s of last century. “Divide and Rule” is what the colonials thought as a good recipe for the natives. Same as the official “unspoken for” policy emanating from Brussels back then, and still employed in Brussels today.

This is a recipe for disaster in Greece where a new civil war is not out of the question. When the Neo-Nazis of Greece get an incredible 18% of the popular vote according to recent voting preference polls and the extreme communists get a popular vote preference of 32%, you’ve got an undeclared civil war in your hands. And this is where the victims are – for now – the weakest members of society visited by violence after degrading violence. The rest of the populace still feel the comfort of “belonging” as Greek citizens seemingly basking in bodily health but rotten in emotional and mental health – when they look elsewhere every time violence is visited upon the illegals by the black shirts. And even though many amongst them, can’t afford basic medicine or proper care – still consider themselves better off by comparison and like the Good Germans of the 1930’s and 40’s choose to look away when the Nazis came for the nice little Jewish family next door and they disappeared. never mind their time will come soonest… Yet the Greek leaders in their dangerous self deception, ignorance and pompousness – forget that the protective inoculation effects of the TB shots the children of Greece get in childhood before school age – wears off after even years. Because after seven years without booster shots, you are just as if never inoculated. Same like the illegals. Now in the economic crisis all booster shots have been stopped due to unavailability of basic meds during the crisis and due to the usual Greek carelessness for maintenance of public health or anything else for that matter that contains the word PUBLIC in it. Now in Greece — we experience the ultimate tragedy of the Commons. The ravaging of the people’s health and the danger to the generation to come. The babes and yet to be born, for these are the most at risk and the ones easier to lose to rampant pneumonic TB as their system is easily compromised without adequate mature immunity defenses as the adults have built up… over the years.

And it’s all happening in a country where the covered-up, the unseen and untalked about, is often the most deadly. It’s not what CNN and BBC broadcast ad infinitum – the masked protester throwing cocktail Molotov at the police and the thousands of rounds of tear gas bullets fired in return. It’s far more insidious than that. Because the silent yet deadly killers — pathogen viruses like TB have started showing up again and nobody does anything at all. Greece’s government being what it is — is in a state of denial. Denial so deep that all the country’s Doctors have standing orders by the Ministry of Health and the Medical Association to change the death certificates of TB victims to other causes. So in Athens alone, this winter, there were many hundreds of influenza deaths, or pneumonic edema, pleurisy and pneumonia young victims — that were all really misreported deaths caused by pneumonic TB. Many children and adults who died from TB and yet the Doctors in an act of final betrayal had to write fictional death certificates, simply because they want to still be able to practice. Betrayal of the Truth and betrayal of the final cause of death of a young human being is a crime far larger than any penal code can levy. Let alone the puny code of Ethics the Medical Association or the Minister of Health Betrayal of the Asclepius and Hippocrates and the Oath all Greek Physicians have to take before they practice is a crime against humanity. Because hiding the truth about TB – we hide the possibility of getting professional help from the World Health Organization to root out the virus and we cause daily new victims. And that is nothing compared to the extreme chance we take allowing the disease to blossom into a full blown epidemic. Because this disease virus gets airborne easily and spreads in all public places where people breathe and it lodge itself into the lungs. In the subway, the bus, the metro, the cinema, theatre, cafes, taxis, and in all places people congregate TB is present according to air pathogen measurement tests. From public markets to public meetings one gets exposed. And for the Greek Doctors following the Ministry of Health directive, so they don’t lose their licence and their source of income – must remind them they commit a crime. This Cover-Up is not just a simple crime of omission of the truth. It is an ultimate act of betrayal, selfishness and hate. No wonder so many Greek Doctors cannot handle this violence against human dignity and migrate to London and elsewhere yearning to breathe free.

It’s further insulting the world’s intelligence, that the European Health Authorities pretend to not know of the problem so “their hands” stay seemingly clean. Clean as the hands of the thieving Greek politicians accepting German bribes. Same goes for the European Politicians who want to appear having “clean hands” when their Austerity policies forced upon this poor yet proud nation have these predictable results and nasty side effects. But like our old friend Joseph said: “A person’s death is a tragedy … yet thousands upon thousands of dead are just a statistic.” All the European allies, the UN and WHO, — they all know, yet hide the fact that TB is rampant in Greece for their own nefarious reasons. Usually a form of misunderstood realpolitik and fear is involved. Or simply passing the buck to someone else. And all of them are always claiming the Greek government generated statistics do not show this TB influence as being any kind of problem in Greece. Of course they know that the Greek government is lying same as the Europeans knew the financial data Greece was supplying to the Euro-Commision were false… but that’s another story. We all know how Greeks cook the books to show whatever is convenient to them short term, and how this current government’s party predecessors cooked the economic books and managed to throw the country on the rocks and breach the ship of state. You can easily see where this fakery of statistics brought the country now. A beggar like a stinking colonial – amongst sovereign nations. And now they exercise the same bit of “intelligence” and cook the books showing the diminished health of the people of Greece and the economic effect this crisis has with the unleashing of virulent strains for pneumonic TB. The killer TB he one virus that reaps more than half of all infected when it reaches the lungs. That’s what the Politician’s “Clean Hands” are responsible for. And they do this mindlessly never realizing they are playing domino, with the health of the citizenry. Bravo to the Greek leaders of today. The IG award has been won…

Am really afraid though that the same didactic results of history’s darker moments will ensue and their shamefaced administration will be known as the “Time of TB” in Greece…

This travesty gets perpetuated and persists because it serves the interests of all partners in this vast crime against humanity. The World Health Organization [because WHO claims to not being invited officially by the Greek government to investigate and act], the Europeans and the IMF [claiming clean hands due to lack of knowledge], the German Chancellor [same excuse] and the Greek government wanting to protect the Greek Tourism industry from collapse, because if news of TB gets out no sane tourists will visit the country. All hogwash and poor excuses but together constitute a vast conspiracy of criminal dereliction of duty, inimical omission and untruths. All together those charged to protect us are conspiring to hide the killing truth and are dancing around the TB virus as if they are Welsh coal mine owners, telling coal miners that there is no TB and denying the existence of TB in their coal mines, although the colliers were dying wholesale due to “Black Lung”.

And although all of the above co-conspirators have been warned by the Environmental Parliament repeatedly – no action has been taken. The United Nations cannot act to help, because the “official” Greek government does not give the real statistics of TB deaths and infections to them and perhaps most importantly, it does not “invite” them into the country. Therefore the WHO has no jurisdiction. The same goes for the CDIC and all other infectious disease agencies. NGOs are not allowed to offer medical services in Greece — God forbid they might steal away some of the luxurious benefits of medical practitioners long accustomed to “bakshish” or “fakelaki” as a way of offering corrupt services and perpetuating social injustice. Greece’s government and it’s paymasters in Berlin and Brussels are silent due to the all gripping fear that if the true extent of TB in Athens and Greece gets revealed, the last remaining functioning Greek industry – Tourism – will be shot dead, and the capital needed to rescue the country from insolvency and worse, will be multiplied.

So this is a terrible conundrum to get caught into…

And we can chalk this down to pure ideology and it’s practitioners acting away from science and reason. This in the country where scientific reason was born 2,500 years ago… Today a New Dark Age ha descended in the country that spawned Hippocrates and gave the world all the basis of Modern Medicine. Asclepius must be crying in his cups right about now looking down to his fatherland from someplace up in the skies…

All this in the year of the lord, 2013. An auspicious year in the country where it’s own faulty ideology looms large. Both the government, and the main opposition are served well by this criminal betrayal of the Truth and Humanity. Same as their Communist mindghetto ideology of the Left and the fascist mindcamp to the Right of the ideological divide benefit from this betrayal. True, by not reporting TB and allowing this silent killer to do it’s worst they think that their position in strengthened in society. Something akin to the Catholic church being vastly enlarged during the times of Black Death in Europe. It’s no accident that so many great Cathedrals were started at times of disease and pestilence. People sought refuge in ideology and looked up above for a benevolent Saviour. Today the right wing thugs get to beat up on undocumented immigrants with impunity, the official government rounds them up and deports them hastily [claiming undefined health fears] since the “strangers” are usually not vaccinated,

Still the Greek government recognizes that the best way to drive the illegal aliens out is to use Hitler type methods to sequester and expel the admittedly large group of border crossing illegals. Human beings and statistics get blurred again and the threat of death actual and imagined looms large. Because the Greek government has denied vehemently and in practice to begin inoculating against the widespread TB strains, all illegals who come ashore to Greece. This I have personally asked of this current and the previous Prime Minister and have been rebuffed and refused as meddlesome individual not understanding the lofty affairs of the state. Silly bastards… They treat a killer disease that could erupt into a massive and uncontrollable epidemic – at any moment – pending the direction the DNA wits of the variable virus. These otherwise well educated men treat this ” virulent host” of superior intelligence, as a political game.

No it’s my turn to remind them: “Political Leaders who forget the general precautionary principle are doomed to extinction.” Today’s Greek Politicians prefer to have the threat of allowing disease to infect the population at large. They find a comfortable balance in allowing the virus to be hanging above peoples’ head like a Damocles sword — than having to face up facts. And they think this way they control the populace. And they also get to exhibit Bravado towards the European allies as modern day “Acrites” claiming that if they relax internal European border controls and allow this sea of humanity to wash up on the rest of Europe’s more “civilized “shores, they will infest the whole of Europe from Krakow to Glasgow and from Helsinki to Lisbon with disease… So they go on blackmailing reality. And to that end they use the black shirts interspersed with security personnel from Police and Paramilitary forces, to do the dirty work. They do the dastardly deed in the dark of night. They drive out the illegal refugees in what has become the rallying cry of the Right wing junta aspirants and all the mindless folk following. This “Beggar thy neighbour” policy of course started in Berlin and that’s where the just deserts will end up in the end — but that’s another story.

This ideological clash of midgets, might of course lead to civil war or worse. But who cares when there is not enough food to put on the table, the country’s GDP having been reduced by more than a third on this seventh year of economic malaise, and unemployment hitting 30% of the working population. A third and a third and a third… Some serial disaster unfolds to be sure. Bad things travel in THREES is how an old Greek saying goes. And what the third disaster to unfold might be is up to chance: A viral epidemic of TB to kill off the youngest and oldest, the of corruption and irresponsibility? A civil war? A sudden bankruptcy resulting in Collapse of the State? Or a violent Junta?

Politically the most likely scenario is the last one if Greece’s finances falter badly again. Realistically though the Collapse of Public Health due to a runaway viral Disease epidemic like TB is the most likely scenario, based in the Simulation Models, we’ve run. There is a reason why all WHO infectious disease control Doctors and the CIDC personnel, call Tuberculosis an economic disease.

Of course in a show of Greece’s political class stupidity — a Hitler style dictatorship is not to be ruled out, due to history having a silly tendency to repeat itself in the most inopportune moments… And when well meaning politicians think they can control and use to advantage silly buggers like a mini Hitler personality of the leader of the Golden Dawn party of neonazis for their personal gain, I must remind them of how much luck Hindenburg and Von Papen had with this political technique that gave rise to Hitler as Chancellor and the subsequent events you might remember.

For those of you who don’t remember:

The Brüning administration’s austerity measures after the economic crash of 1929 brought zero economic improvement, no growth, massive unemployment and were extremely unpopular, with the German people thus allowing Hitler to exploit this situation by targeting his political messages specifically at people who had been affected by the loss of work, by inflation of the 1920s, and the general Depression, such as soldiers, city workers, farmers, war veterans, and the whole of the middle class.

Germans turned to Nazism because they were desperate. The number of Nazi seats in the Reichstag rose from 12 in 1928 to 230 in July 1932. In the November 1932 elections the Nazis again failed to get a majority of seats in the Reichstag. Their share of the vote fell – from 230 seats to only 196. Hitler contemplated suicide. But then he was rescued by Hindenburg’s fatefully daft decision.

Franz von Papen Germany’s Chancellor and a friend of Hindenburg wanted more support in the Reichstag. Hindenburg and von Papen were having to govern by emergency decree under Article 48 of the Constitution, so they offered Hitler the post of vice-Chancellor if he promised to support them. Hitler agreed under his terms and he demanded to be made Chancellor. So Von Papen and Hindenburg took that risk assuring their party leaders and followers alike, that within six months or less – when Hitler would have served his purpose – they will get rid of him. On the 30th of January 1933, Hindenburg made Adolf Hitler Chancellor of Germany with all Interior and Police forces under his command. Hindenburg thought he could control Hitler… Yet history shows how wrong he was. Within a month Reichstag was burning… In the end, Hitler did not TAKE power at all – he was given it and by next month, human rights, Reichstag and the German Democracy were all toast.

Greeks — like the Germans who turned to the Nazis in the depth of their economic depression because they were desperate, are now turning to neo-nazis. The parallels are eery. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the US called in its loans to Germany, and the German economy collapsed. The Brüning government instituted a tough Austerity program that had predictably harsh results for the people. The number of unemployed grew dramatically, and people starved on the streets. Back then – as in today – during the crises, people want someone to blame, and look to extreme solutions.

Back then as in today, the ruling politicians like glorious German leader Hindenburg, and inglorious Franz von Papen Chancellor – all were fools. Inglorious Bastards the Greeks politicians are not, but certainly fools and simple bastards are…

Remember Greece also had an incredible SIXTEEN years of CIVIL WAR right after the end of the WWII. The second world war, literally didn’t finish for Greece for another 16 years… Sixteen more years of bloodshed and brotherly killing after the five years of the Nazi holocaust in Greece made this country the surest loser of WWII. Greece lost more than a whopping twenty five percent of it’s population due to the war, famine, rampant disease and more in the war and subsequent civil conflict where Soviet Satellite Communists fought out the Nationalists. And even though Greece fought valiantly and was with the camp of the eventual winners… it still suffered mightily. Greece fought the original Axis of Evil early on. And let’s not forget that it was Greece that offered the first victory to the Allied camp. It fought desperately, winningly, and like a cornered animal, scratching and biting and eventually rooting out wholesale the not so valiant Italian fascists… But when the German mighty machine was unleashed against it – it still fought on. And it delayed the Germans and their forces of evil – long enough – for the Russian winter to set in, and Stalin to harden his defence. So that when Hitler ventured after Stalin’s hardened steel – Hitler stumbled badly. The German mighty machine was ground up and reduced to so much Russian mud. Because Greece delayed the Germans — the second World War was won in the frozen shores of Volga in Stalingrad. Still Greece for it’s bravery had to lose more people as a percentage of it’s population than any country involved in that war. Talk about Chaos Theory and the butterfly effect… explained in the war’s jargon of statistical analysis.

Good thing then that Greece’s brotherly machetes are not out yet. And the people are not about to start slashing… except when a dark skinned coloured illegal is concerned when he gets attacked by the neo-nazi skinheads. These amazing black shirted buffoons – somehow claiming chameleon status — being a criminal gang masquerading as a Democratic party.

Yet all this misery is fostered and supported by the the ruling external and internal powers of Greece. King Leopold’s doctrine looms large in Brussels and Berlin even sending misguided missionaries to Greece. A new colonial era upon Europe’s fringe has begun. No wonder the German schools are thriving in Greece for the children of the elite and the children of the German Gauleiters lording it over this ancient land. This ancient land that has seen so many invaders and conquerors come and go and each and every time managed to get rid of them like a dog rising up from slumber and shaking off a bunch of bloodsucking fleas. Still the mindset of a misguided unevolved bunch of overpaid Brussels, Berlin and Frankfurt bureaucrats afraid to differ from official 19th century economic and political doctrine has reduced Greece to this state of abject poverty and servitude in the year 2013. Make no mistake Greece is far worse than Portugal or any other Euro zone country affected by the sovereign debt crisis. Mr Barrosso’s Portugal gets preferential treatment each and every time from Brussels. And Mr Monti’s Italy too. Greece being a young poor beauty without protectors in high places get ravaged every time. And in the face of the leering Euro-dwarfs, not only we have a dearth of leadership throughout Europe and therefore people suffer in Greece the “Time of TB” and worse, but we also have callous old men wanting to send her children to die in a useless fight all over again — over some bankrupt ideologies…

For TB to be be allowed by reasonable leaders to rear it’s ugly head again – after 50 years in remission and mistakenly called extinct – it’ a major crime. News of the disease’s early demise and eradication are all obviously false. Yet for me these lies, the cover-up, the false statistics and misleading death certificates are all signs of the inaction that is a crime against humanity. And as it so happens – I know of a special court that deals exactly with those sort of thing. The ICC deals with perpetrators of these human right abuses and will be happy to refer the errant boys directly there. For allowing and inadvertently encouraging TB to be showing up it’s ugly face in Athens of all places no less… and the human toll it’ taken so far.

But the flow of history will not decline in the long term, as shrunken head politicians seem to think in this dry spell of intelligence, that Greece is going through. This situation will also heighten already fraught relations with its neighbour Turkey, which controls the source of the illegal immigration and uses this power as a weapon already and, as ever more strain is put on the relationship, tensions over the river border, the island rich Aegean archipelago and the few resources underneath the seafloor, could lead to war.

There are some laborious analogies, and perhaps TB would have been a better virus than most if it focused on the Politicians alone. And if it’s impacts were thus targeted to rid the country of it’s main scourge of malaise. Overall, though, the politicians are doing a good job of conveying just how bad the situation is and avoiding the mixing with the SSo they avoid the TB virus too as they do not use public transport or visit public spaces for fear of their constituency rising up, roughing them up and banging their heads. Politicians who are careless of unleashing mass infectious disease on the populace, or of triggering wars, and causing mass migration, famine and disease — are afraid of their very own people and are scared to even walk amongst them. These are not politicians at all. They are something else. Yet in poor old Greece are still called leaders. In all other places they are simply called thugs.

Am no prophet and believe that no one can predict the future, but by exploring historical catastrophes, one opens our collective eyes to what it might hold. After Brüning’s failed AUSTERITY policy measures and Von Papen’s failed Weimar Republic, we got Hitler… and after that… we got war. You can draw your own conclusions about how close we are to both.

But will convincing people TB is a serious infectious threat in Athens, really lead to action?

I’m dubious about Germany’s Chancellor’s sincerity in wanting to help Europe’s poorest of relations.

And am certainly sceptical about the premise that European Unity is sacrosanct…

Seeing as a I live in London and our PM is wanting a hasty Exit from the EU now that things are getting tough. When things get tough the tough get going is the current Tory motto. He is of course being advised by Prophets of gloom and doom. George Osbourne being a depressive pessimist and austerity fanboy – things are certainly gonna get tougher in the future. David and the Whitehall civil servants on the other hand claim divine divination powers and might just be the last prophets alive. Men able to gaze in the crystal ball boldly, judging by their willingness to cut and run. So much for European Unity and Peace in our time.

Yours,

Pano

PS:

Still in our political system, making radical changes now to solve today’s ills and avoid tomorrow’s magnified problems is virtually impossible. Thus without a popular revolt matters aren’t going to improve. The problem in’t helped by the immense clout of Berlin alley cats, Frankfurt Banker-Wankers and Eurocrats, all spanking the same monkey in unison, either.

So it remains upon us to do this individually and provide for comfort through Solidarity and Love to each other. And i’ve started almost a year ago to the day a solitary effort financed out of my pocket to help alleviate some of the misery of the disease. I’ll spare you the details but we have two teams scouring Athens ghetto of the centre and far and screening with mobile units the population at risk quietly and without spreading fear of police brutality or deportation or worse we find the carriers and administer antibiotics, inoculations for children and the little medical care we can afford to give.

We cannot help everyone but the ones we help might be the ones that matter to both save live and cut down the risk of disease leaping out to the general public. No Thanks is expected — just to be left alone to continue our work — in this land where no good deed goes unpunished.

And the reason why am optimistic that Greece will not perish in the heap of troubles that is going through and that her path is not the one prescribed by Hitler’s meteoric rise to power or similar sinister future because of something Germany never had. Greece has a well developed humaneness and a Solidarity amongst the members of her communities. The longest functional Civilization of Europe, has worked itself deep inside the DNA of the people, and it shines through, even when for all outward appearances the country is bereft of any merit…

Yet her people are all too human, and that is enough of the credit we all need in the Bank of Good Deeds, Daily Victories and Eternal Rewards. Greece’s light will surely keep on shining with people like this.

As an example I want to share this story that apparently took place in the neighbourhood of Neos Kosmos in Athens as ws told to me this weekend:

One small girl broke her piggy bank and emptied out the contents hurriedly.

Measured the coins three times, carefully. It was all together one Euro and 11 cents. She took the coins and went to the neighbourhood pharmacy…
The pharmacist at that moment, was speaking with a well-dressed gentleman and did not notice the little girl. The girl made a noise with her feet, but again failed to attract attention. She waited for a few moments more and then she took out one of the coins and hit it on the pharmacy’s counter.
– What do you want? asked her the somewhat irritated pharmacist. Can not you see that I speak with my brother, that I have not seen for years?

Then this little six year old girl said:
– I want to talk to you about my brother, who is very ill, and I want to buy a miracle…
– Sorry, the pharmacist replied, but we are a simple pharmacy. We do not sell miracles…
– You know, the little girl said, my brother has something in his head, that is growing – and my dad says that only a miracle will save us. Well, how much does a miracle cost to buy it. I have money ….
The well dressed gent – the pharmacist’s brother, who was watching with interest the discussion, interrupted and asked the little girl, what sort of miracle was needed for her brother?
– I do not know. Replied the six year old girl with tears in her eyes. What we know is that my three year old brother needs
surgery for his head, and my dad has no money. Therefore, I want to pay with my own money.
The well dressed gentleman questions the six year old girl: How much money do you have? Her short answer was “One Euro and 11 cents, and if you need more I will find more.”
– What a coincidence, smiled the well-dressed gentleman. It is the exact price of a miracle for a little brother: One Euro and 11 cents!
That minute, he grabbed the little girl by the hand, and said: “Come along, take me to your house to see your brother and your parents and see what we can do to make this miracle work”
The well-dressed gentleman was a renowned neurosurgeon of Athens and he went on to perform the brain surgery for the little brother gratis. Free of charge completely, he offered his and the hospital services without any mention…